Plot To Kill Walesa Alleged

May 15, 1985|United Press International

WARSAW, POLAND — The government revealed Tuesday it uncovered a plot to assassinate Solidarity founder Lech Walesa and arrested the man hired to kill him. The suspect told police the murder was to be blamed on the United States.

Government spokesman Jerzy Urban said police arrested Jozef Szczepanski, a convicted murderer, on charges of maintaining contacts with an unnamed underground organization and of agreeing to kill Walesa.

Urban said Szczepanski, who was arrested Saturday, admitted to police that unidentified individuals had tried to recruit him to kill the Solidarity founder.

The government gave few other details. But in a letter to the state prosecutor in the northern seaport of Gdansk, Walesa`s lawyer, Jacek Taylor, disclosed that Szczepanski had revealed the murder plot to Walesa because he supports Solidarity.

Taylor said Szczepanski was convicted of the unintentional killing of a police officer in 1981 and sentenced to 11 years in prison.

Taylor said the convicted murderer was offered the chance of having his sentence reduced if he carried out a plan to kill Walesa and then claimed upon his arrest that the murder was backed by the United States.

Taylor did not say who made the offer or how the sentence could be reduced.

Taylor`s letter said Szczepanski was approached while he was on parole Thursday by a mysterious ``instigator`` who asked him to carry out the assassination of Walesa, described as a ``traitor.``

Szczepanski said in a separate written statement, copies of which were circulated in Warsaw, that the killing was to occur at a railway station in the town of Stara Jani in northern Poland.

Szczepanski said the plan called for him to be caught and arrested.

``I was supposed to testify that a man from the American Embassy was the instigator of the killing,`` he said.

Solidarity sources said Szczepanski had been promised U.S. dollars and an American-made gun to carry out the killing.

``The people that wanted to use me did not know that I hate communism and support Solidarity,`` Szczepanski said.

Also Tuesday, a key Communist Party official suspected of masterminding the murder of pro-Solidarity priest Jerzy Popieluszko in October was removed from the ruling Politburo.